Katsunobu Katō

Kato was born as Katsunobu Murosaki (室崎勝信) on 22 November 1955 in Tokyo, Japan. His father, Katsutoshi Murosaki, was an executive at Hino Motors. The family came from Shimane Prefecture, where his grandfather, Katsuzo Murosaki was a businessman and prefectural assemblyman. Kato studied economics at the University of Tokyo and joined the Ministry of Finance upon graduating in 1979. He held several positions, such as chief of the Kurayoshi Tax Office, secretary to Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Hideo Watanabe and chief inspector for the labour and defense budgets.

In April 1994, Kato was assigned as secretary to the Minister of Agriculture Mutsuki Kato. Kato married Shuko Kato, the daughter of Mutsuki Kato. As his family had only daughters, Kato was adopted by his father-in-law to carry on his family name. He retired from the Ministry of Finance in 1995 and became his father-in-law's personal secretary.

Kato would pursue his political career in Okayama Prefecture, where his adoptive family was based. After unsuccessful runs in 1998 and 2000, Kato was elected to the House of Representatives for the first time in the 2003 general election. He had initially run as an independent as his father-in-law had left the LDP, however fellow Okayama politician and former Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto recruited him for the party and when elected, Kato joined the Heisei Kenkyukai led by Hashimoto. This was significant as Hashimoto and Mutsuki Kato had long been rivals in the political world of Okayama.

Kato became a confidant of Shinzo Abe. This was partially due to a family relationship, as Mutsuki Kato had been a close ally of Abe's father Shintaro Abe and his wife had remained a close friend of Abe's mother, Yoko. In August 2007, Kato became parliamentary vice minister to the Cabinet Office in the Abe Cabinet. He was retained until the end of the Yasuo Fukuda Cabinet.

When Abe was re-elected as president of the LDP in September 2012, he appointed Kato as his special assistant. In December of the same year, the LDP returned to government and Kato was appointed Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary. In October 2015, Kato joined the cabinet for the first time as minister of state with a portfolio including countermeasures against the declining birthrate and women's empowerment.

When Shinzo Abe reshuffled his cabinet in August 2017, Kato became as the Minister of Health, Labor, and Welfare, but he left cabinet in October 2018 when he was appointed Chairman of the General Council, one of four key posts in the LDP. Kato was reappointed as Minister of Health, Labor, and Welfare in September 2019.

After Abe resigned as Prime Minister on 16 September 2020 for health reasons, Kato was appointed Chief Cabinet Secretary under his successor Yoshihide Suga. After the end of the Suga Cabinet after one year, Kato became chairman of the Social Security Research Commission and subcommittee chairman of the Tax Research Commission within the LDP.

In August 2022 when Prime Minister Fumio Kishida reshuffled his cabinet following the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe one month previous, Kato was appointed Minister of Health, Labor, and Welfare for the third time. On 27 April 2023 as COVID-19 Omicron infections continued to declined, Kato announced that Japanese government would be downgrade the classification of COVID-19 to be on par with a "seasonal flu" by midnight 8 May after the three days delayed during the 8-day holiday period of Golden Week Festival.

Kato left from the cabinet due to the reshuffle in September 2023, after which he once again became chairman of the Social Security Research Commission, and as well as Secretary-General of the LDP Headquarters for Realizing Constitutional Revision. In September 2024, Kato was named to join the cabinet of Shigeru Ishiba as Minister of Finance.

After the end of the Ishiba cabinet, Kato was appointed head of the LDP task force for political system reform, to handle a proposed reduction in diet seats among other issues.

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